Osun decides: PDP would have hijacked election if in power – Lai Mohammed

The All Progressives Congress, APC, Campaign Council for the 2018 Osun governorship election has condemned in strong terms the call by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to declare its candidate in the poll, Ademola Adeleke, as the winner.

In a statement issued in Lagos on Monday, the Chairman of the Council’s Media Committee, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the APC said had it been during the PDP regime, there would have been no room for rerun election because the party would have used state institutions to hijack the election as it allegedly did in 2014 in Ekiti.

Mohammed maintained the Council’s earlier statement that the PDP was in the panic mode prior to the election and that the main opposition party had no confidence in the institutions saddled with organising the polls.

The candidate of the PDP in the September 22 election, Senator Ademola Adeleke, had over 300 more votes than the APC candidate, Gboyega Oyetola.

The PDP had argued that Adeleke met the constitutional requirement to be declared the winner of the election by INEC

Mohammed said rather than resort to threats, the opposition could either go to court or decide not to participate in the supplementary election slated for Thursday.

He said what the PDP cannot and must not do was to engage in its alleged trade-mark brigandage, or employ tactics that can short-circuit the democratic process.

He said, ”In its time, there would have been no room for a supplementary election in Osun because the PDP would have used state institutions to hijack the election proper, as it did in Ekiti in 2014.

“But in its deafening hysteria, the PDP pretends not to understand the real meaning of the outcome of the Osun election: That the ruling APC did nothing to prevent the state institutions that organised the election from carrying out their duties, in the spirit of true democracy.

”Local and foreign observers have hailed INEC and the security agencies for a well-organised election. We join them in this commendation.

“Our confidence in the ability of the relevant state institutions involved in the Osun election remains unshaken. So also is our belief that every disagreement resulting from the election must be resolved through the democratic process, rather than a resort to threats of fire and brimstone.

”Rather than resort to threats, like the PDP is doing now, the APC simply submitted to the democratic process and the supplementary election was peacefully conducted in 91 polling units across 18 of the 21 local governments in the state.